Friday, January 31, 2014

A familial Bones 9.15 tonight, with two stories having to do with families, one of which produced the bones in the case, which turns out to not even have been a murder. All in the family - or two families - with mostly the better sides of human nature on center stage, and not even a killer in the house.

The case concerns a recently killed corpse, whose toe has been inexpertly "ripped off," as Bones blurts out to the bereaved family. But it turns out that this a key clue in the case, in which the girl ripped off her own toe which got infected, in the process of faking her own kidnapping . The killer who's not really a killer turns to be the young woman's dog walker, who, having access to a veterinarian, dosed the woman to treat the infection with a powerful form of penicillin which he didn't know she was allergic to. Yep, it was that kind of night on Bones - the kind that Bones excels in - in which people get hoisted on their own petards or penicillin.

But the Hodgins story was a little more memorable and significant. In fact, it added a new character to the greater Bones family: a brother that Hodgins didn't know he had. The downside is that the brother suffers from delusions and has for most of his life been a resident in a very hospitable and expensive institution, which is why Hodgins never knew him (he was sent to the institution before Hodgins was born). Hodgins takes an instant liking to his brother - they both love science fiction, in particular Jules Verne (me too!) - and is inclined to take the brother home with him, when the brother flips out, i.e., has one of episodes, which understandably upsets Hodgins.

But Hodgins can't just leave his newly discovered brother in the institution either, because the upkeep costs big bucks - which, as we know, Hodgins no longer has. Bones might have come to the rescue, having just received a $75,000 advance for one of her novels. (Slight apparent error in the script here - Bones says it's an advance against monies earned, but advances are almost always money that traditional publishers give to their authors for royalties expected to be earned - hence the word "advance").

In the end, Hodgins turns down the money, and says he'll finance his brother the way normal people do, that is, by taking out a loan. As I said, a nice and meaningful story all around, with the added attraction of hearing a quote from Jules Verne, always welcome on television.

Continuing with my sneak preview reviews of Banshee - this time, episode 2.5, set to air February 7, 2014 - courtesy of a screener disk provided by Starpulse. As always, these reviews will deal in generalities and avoid specific spoilers.

Among the highlights of Banshee 2.5:Well, episode 2.5 is such a different, ethereal, half-dreamlike, but ultimately scalding reality kind of Banshee that I'm going to dispense with the bullets, and go discursive, after just this one bullet -

a major character introduced just this season dies

And the rest of the story ... well, it consists of three parts. There's a beautiful quasi-dream-come-true part, with spare dialogue and masterful imagery and music. Whose dream? Well, look at the picture above. It contains a major revelation about what one of these characters really wants to do. Will it happen? What do you think - is Banshee ready for even a fantasizing, a planning, of a happy ending? Or will the dream go up in smoke?And there's a gun play part - though episode 2.5 has about the least amount of violence and gun play I recall in any episode.And there's an aftermath part, in which Hood takes account of what might have happened and really happened. And his response to all of that is ... well, satisfying.And I'll be back here between February 7th and 14th with my sneak preview review of episode 2.6.See alsoBanshee Season 2 Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.2: Sneak Preview Review... Banshee 2.3 Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.4 Sneak Preview Review

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

It's the little details of alternate history/future in Revolution that I most enjoy - Mexico using its border guards to keep what's left of Americans from entering Mexico, new configurations of nation states arising in post-blackout North America., that kind of thing. And tonight, in Revolution 2.13, we get another tidbit: in the new Las Vegas, they're hawking a look at Steve Tyler's "mummified remains". Something about this struck me as funny, maybe because Steve Tyler in our reality already looks a lot like a mummy?

Otherwise, there's good plot and character development on all sorts of levels. Romantically, Rachel and Miles finally sleep together - "20 years of foreplay is enough," Rachel says - as do Charlie and Monroe's son Connor Bennett. Well, Charlie and Connor haven't known each other very long, and their relationship can hardly be called romantic. But they did both enjoy it, which means there's promise of things to come.

And, speaking of Connor, it was a good night for fathers and sons. Not only Monroe and Connor - who end up in a bit of peril, but they'll surely be ok - but Tom and Jason are back together, and, even more important, they're both together with Miles and Rachel in Willoughby, Texas. Tom and Jason both lie pretty convincingly to Miles that what they want is revenge for the death of Julia, but Miles is sharp, and he'll pick up the first slip, which Jason is likely to make before too long.

So the characters and story lines continue to converge, which is good, with the action in Lubbock being the odd nanite out. Although I like the firefly godlike powers gambit in general, I thought the Lubbock religious story was a little too obvious, and almost trivial - despite the nanite profundity - in comparison to what was happening with the rest of our characters.

The Olympics in our reality are sidelining Revolution until the end of February, and I'll be back then with another review.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

An excellent Intelligence 1.4 last night - good plot, good banter, good action. But what made it excellent were the cyber details, which, as they should be, are the heart of the series.

The one I like best was Gabriel's invocation of social media to get the Syrian prison guards to think there was an imminent attack. Online chatter is indeed taken seriously by all intelligence agencies, and the use of it to fake out an enemy - in this case, to get a prisoner out in the open, where Gabriel could rescue her - was a savvy move. And, for icing on the cake, it seems that Gabriel is talking to our people back in the U.S., and getting them to put out the disinformation, when in fact and as we know, Gabriel is putting out the misleading info directly himself. I'll probably cite this episode in the next edition of my book, New New Media, in the chapter that deals with the future of social media and terrorism.

The other notable aspect of this episode happens at the very end. The President, we're told, is concerned about Gabriel going off script, which human beings, cyber-embedded or not, are of course prone to do. But the result is apparently that Lillian will have less off a free hand in putting Gabriel and Riley in the field. As I mentioned in my review of Intelligence 1.2, this series seems to be moving along with transformative episodes much more quickly than other series on television, which I take to be a good thing.

So far, the series has also had a very good mix of different stories in the episodes. Last night's Syrian action was, along with last week's Snowden show, the most literally all-but-ripped from the current headlines, and shows like that are always a pleasure to see. Former President Finnigan, a Bill Clinton-like character, was also good to see on hand.

-> Hey, I had the pleasure of meeting John Dixon at the American Library Association conference this past weekend, and got a copy of his novel, Phoenix Island, which was the inspiration for Intelligence.
Look for a review of that novel here soon.

The thing about The Following is that when it works best, Hardy gets a least a few victories. Joe and his Following still get most of them, but for the story to work, Hardy has to at least save a life, rescue a victim, once in a while. Tonight's episode 2.2 gives us that. Although the Following in New York City - that is, the evil identical twins - kill a couple and then have dinner with their dead bodies at a well set table (killing and then pseudo-living with the victims is the twins' motif), they don't manage to dispatch Lily Grey (good to see Connie Nielsen back on the screen last week and this after Boss). Lily is clearly Ryan's new love interest, and the question with The Following always is whether, when the intended victim survives, if that was the intention of the killers all along? My wife even thinks it's possible that Lily may be part of the Following, and while I wouldn't rule that out, my sense at this is point is that she's who she seems to be. Still ...

Meanwhile, it's worth noting how fractured the Following itself seems to be. Most of them including Emma are out of touch with Joe - Emma apparently thought he was dead - and they're in constant low-key war with one another, or in groups versus groups. In a way, this mirrors what we're seeing in law enforcement on The Following, where Hardy's at odds with the FBI, especially Mike, and with the NYPD, too. Presumably this won't last as long - certainly not between Hardy and Mike - as the battles among Joe's adherents.

Meanwhile, Joe's story is, unsurprisingly, the most chilling tonight. He rediscovers his killer instinct - obsession is the better word - when he kills the Reverend who is sleeping with his woman, herself a part of the Following who had been corresponding with Joe when he was in prison. But Joe's reasons for the killing are rational, as they usually are - the Rev has realized that the Southern cracker with a beard and a half-baked accent is actually Joe Carroll. So what did choice did Joe have?

Before the killing, we're treated to a dueling Socrates debate between Joe and Rev, which Joe - again, unsurprisingly - gets better, when he quotes Socrates about the benefits of death. The Following is off to a very good - that is to say, disconcerting emotionally and philosophically - start.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Whew, a crackerjack Blacklist 1.13 tonight, in which Red continues to do what he does best - getting to the root of his problems, identifying his enemies, and dealing with them, no matter how powerful, in the only way he reliably can: killing them.

Tonight that enemy would be US Assistant Attorney General Diane Fowler - played by Jane Alexander - identified by Red as the true rat who almost killed him and Lizzie. Fowler's rage when she learned there was a double agent in the FBI's ranks was a clever ploy to throw suspicion on someone else. We learn early in tonight's episodes that it's not Malik, and in fact Red is able to use her to get the goods on Fowler. All of that build-up is good. But when Red shoots Fowler dead, with no warning before that first shot, we get a taste of a character we haven't quite seen before on television. Not even in previous episodes of The Blacklist. Red - or, at very least our knowledge of him - is a dangerous work in progress.

Meanwhile, Lizzie also has an important transforming moment. She realizes she can't adopt a baby with that creepy husband. The ostensible reason was the case tonight, in which a mad scientist impregnates women he has kidnapped, and then sells the babies on the adoption market. This is another good, even excellent, bio-crime story. But the real or deepest reason Lizzie doesn't want to adopt a baby has likely more to do with the unease she feels with Tom. And, indeed, that's in effect the reason she gives him when she tells him that she doesn't want to go ahead with their adoption plans. Good for Lizzie.

Meanwhile, Lizzie and Red are racking up points with the FBI. Shutting down this baby ring saved a lot of mothers' lives. Red will need all the support he can get when word of Fowler's killing gets out. Although his cleaner may be masterful, she can't clean the minds of everyone who may have an inkling of what Red is really up to.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

With snow still on the ground, at least a little more coming, and the bone chilling cold continuing, what better time to watch a new episode - 1.4 - of Helix? Except tonight, the chilling lessons in all areas are inside the lab facility, where find that --

Sarah is suffering from a tumor, not the mysterious illness, which was likely - that she was not a victim of what was getting Peter and the others - because her symptoms were different. I'm thinking her tumor might at some point provide some DNA which could counter the single strand of DNA that is causing all the havoc.

That single strand is like nothing else Doreen has seen, and she's seen it all. So, does that mean the strand is alien? Whatever it is, she gets murdered to protect that knowledge.

Murder is what those in the know in the facility are willing to do - not only Sergio of Doreen, but Hiroshi of those three guys on that lower level who were willing to reduce those dangerous levels of carbon dioxide. Hiroshi was not wrong that they couldn't be trusted not to kill everyone tomorrow, but, even so, his spraying them with bullets was pretty cold.

So, to return to the cold, we have a story that both's slowly and quickly heating up on Helix. The test that Sarah developed has already been identified to Alan as not reliable - she told him - and that means the search for a cure is back to square one, or maybe a little better than that because she knows now what doesn't work. But we also know that Hiroshi and the Pentagon team know a lot more about what's going on than do Alan's diminishing team. The question, at his point, is exactly how much that is happening was unintended - should be fun to follow the tracks in the snow.

Friday, January 24, 2014

The most profound line in Bones 9.14 tonight comes from a chess mentor who tells Sweets: "You cannot drink your glass away." The mentor says it's supposed to be an old Russian saying. I have no idea if it is - nothing comes up when you Google it, except a page in which the word "glass" does not even appear. But it's a great saying, I think, anyway, because it embodies Bertrand Russell's Theory of Logical Types, which, among other things, helps us understand that a container is different from things it contains. A glass contains liquid, and that's what we drink away or consume, not the glass. Similar to a garbage can, which contains stuff that we want throw out, but not the can itself. Anyway, Bertrand Russell, were he still alive, would have liked that line in tonight's Bones, and so would have a few Greek philosophers, too. (And if you're interested in garbage cans and theory of logical types, you might enjoy this little essay.)

As it is, Sweets is the most contemplative in tonight's show. His reentry into the world of chess - his affinity for chess being the glass that he cannot drink away - goes a big way to helping solve the case. That solution, in turn, harkens to another ancient Greek theme - the Oedipal complex, or a son's passion for his mother. The killer of the chess master turns out to have a fatal weakness - he doesn't want to sacrifice his queen, which in this case turns out to be not only the piece on the board, but the son's mother, who might well have left the son in favor of the master, at least in the son's psycho vision.

So although the lab work made its contribution in tonight's episode with Bones and the assist of the droll Canadian intern, the real star of the plot was human psychology, the Greek tragic kind, and well analyzed by Sweets.

The other element worthy of note is Cam being selected as "outstanding woman of science" - an obvious and frankly absurd slight of Bones, who's understandably annoyed. Cam, to her credit, is sensitive about this, while Angela, not to her credit, thinks Bones just has to accept that these things happen. And Booth's opinion is much like Angela's. I know - that's the pc thing to do. I know an editor of a magazine who withdrew himself from an award competition, because he had already won so many times. But what's the logic of that? Give the award to second-best person? In the end, it all works out sort of ok in this episode, and there's a good laugh involved, but I would have preferred a resolution in which Bones got the award, period.

Because genius such as the kind Bones possesses deserves to be recognized always and not drunk away in a toast to collegiality. Hmm, did Bertrand Russell or the ancient Greeks have a theory about that?

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom